Recent Paintings and General Musings on Art

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Limburg Snowscapes

I’m currently living ten minutes outside of Maastricht, Holland in the little hamlet of Libeek in the province of Limburg.

For my first two weeks here the weather has been beautiful blue skies with snow on the ground, but very cold. Almost too cold to paint when the wind was up. I did manage to get a few plein air pieces done before the rain set in.

I used Google Maps for the names (and actually used Street View to scout a bit for the first time) so I hope I got them right.

17 comments

I think Holland must suit you; I love this latest batch. The marks in the snow look as though you’re really having fun. If I had to choose, “Bruisterbosch” is my favorite of this group. The delicacy of the pallet is wonderful as is the handling of the snow in the foreground. Many of these studies look as though they are aching for (much) larger versions. What’s your studio situation there?

Also, congratulations on being a finalist in the January RayMar contest.

Bill, usually I don’t do much tweaking in the studio if I can avoid it. On these I had real trouble drawing from how cold my hands were, so they were heavily reworked in most cases. The only two 100% plein air ones are the first windmill and the ‘Border’ sketch.

These are all so painfully beautiful–is it that they’re winter scenes? They have a loneliness to them. One can feel the cold as if there in person. What are those trees that look like they survived a severe pruning?

You mentioned that you reworked these in the studio, but they still have a very fresh look on them. The colours are very sophiscated and poetic.
How do you go about capturing a sunset? At most you have about 20 minutes of similar lighting. Do you set up before hand? Or did you just stumble upon the view and decided to do a painting then? If so, do you work a lot from memory for this type of painting? It’s so breathtaking.
Thanks